morning after
by cedricsowner
Summary: Short scenes from the morning after Winston had offered Chance/Junior to work together and save people. One-shot. T-rated for language.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.**

Had it felt good to tell Broward he could stick all his rules and regulations, his constant harassments and the spanners he kept throwing in his work right where the sun don't shine?

You bet it did.

But throwing everything away in a cathartic moment of self-liberation after a deep emotional trauma of personal failure, in the middle of a severe onslaught of grief and frustration, is one thing.

Going to a meeting with an ex-assassin the morning after is a totally different thing.

Jesus Christ, what had he gotten himself into?

… … …

The ex-assassin in question looked hung-over, badly shaven and kind of crumpled.

What do you say to a man who, less than 48 hours ago, was your enemy and was now about to become – what? His _friend_?

Winston settled for "business partner".

"I've made coffee."

"I've brought donuts."

They sat down at the former tenant's kitchen table and silently stirred his coffee with his spoons in his cups.

"What shall I call you? Chris? Christopher?"

"Chance. Chance will do. You're Winston, I'm Chance. Kind of matches."

… … …

Winston had spent the night cobbling something together that vaguely resembled a business plan. As he laid it all out, the mortgage issue, the insurance problem, the question of how to declare taxes, he noticed the ex-assassin's eyes turning glassy.

"Hey, are you listening to me?"

His – jeez, really? – business partner slightly jerked, as if awoken from some sort of doze.

"Sorry, 'course I am…" He paused, momentarily pinned by an unrelenting stare that had surely been used during many a police interrogation. Obviously a simple "sorry" wouldn't do. Okay…

"I mean, you really put your best foot forward and all, but… "

"But?"

"This all sounds like tomorrow problems." Bright blue eyes looked at Winston, for lack of a better word, _innocently_, and a dimple appeared on the man's stubbly chin.

Oh boy. A killer with a disarming smile.

"You bet they're tomorrow problems! This is our future I'm talking about here!", Winston exploded.

"Could we maybe just agree on some ground rules for starters?"

"And that would be…?"

"As little bureaucracy as possible and we shoot the bad guys." Chance paused again for a brief moment, then, remembering the old Christopher Chance's words about nobody deserving to die, he added: "If we can't help it."

Now it was Winston's turn to smile. Cautiously, very cautiously, but a smile nevertheless.

"Sounds like a deal to me."

… … …

"Okay, a Crazy Eddie means we provoke somebody into behaving out of the ordinary so he draws all the attention? And an Aunt Linda means we call the Feds?"

Winston noticed Chance trying to hide his amusement about him writing all the different code words down.

"Hey, I'm trying to do this right! One day our lives might depend on me understanding you correctly!"

For a split second the image of this large man pacing up and down a room, actually learning the terms like vocabulary, flashed up in Chance's mind and he couldn't help but chuckle.

"Who for heaven's sake came up with these dumbass names anyway?"

The chuckle died in Chance's chest.

_"...and that's a Norma Jean, dude. But only use it as last resort. When a Norma Jean goes bad, it goes real bad." _

Better not think about him.

Winston noticed that he must have accidentally touched a sore point for suddenly the light in the other man's eyes had gone out. He looked like yesterday evening again, when he had found him drinking. "So, are we done with the terms now?", he asked, trying to steer the conversation back onto solid ground.

"One is missing – Aunt Suzy."

As he listened to the explanation of what Aunt Suzy meant, Winston's skin slightly began to crawl. "This is crazy! You've never actually done that, have you?", he asked.

Chance eyed his cold coffee as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well, at least you're not planning to do it again, are you?"

"Not planning, no…"

The telephone rang. A young man asked for Christopher Chance and then broke into a long, confusing, pretty panicky narration of how he was chased by a dozen really dangerous guys with heavy firearms and no one could help him.

"You've called the right place", the new Christopher Chance told him. "We'll come and get you out of there."

Suddenly fully awake and energetic, he got up, grabbed a gun hidden behind a couple of dusty cookbooks and headed for the elevator.

"Where in the world are you going?", Winston demanded to know, hectically gathering his notes.

"We've got ourselves a client, haven't you heard?" Chance was already almost in the elevator, but then stopped as if remembering something, and waited for Winston to catch up with him.

"But… but don't you want to make a plan first?"

"I actually like winging things…"

Maybe it was at that moment that it fully dawned on Winston for the first time: With Christopher Chance in it, his life would never be the same.


End file.
